Double Agent 73

Doris Wishman followed up the immensely successful Deadly Weapons with this all-you-can-eat lunatic buffet. Ivan Toplar and his gang are flooding the market with bad smack. Who is the only secret agent with the stuff to bring down these slimebags? Burlesque grotesque Chesty Morgan, the girl who makes Candy Samples look like an ironing board! As Jane Genet, Agent 73, Chesty has her vacation at the nudist camp (!)--dig the hilarious cuts between literary-minded Chesty and a puppy--interrupted by this little assignment. So she puts on her red-and-black rhinestone-studded platforms and hits the streets, eliminating the bad guys and taking photos with a tiny spy camera (complete with flash) implanted in her humongous left breast. The deaths are violent, and the victim's last sights are shaky, blurred shots of Chesty's mountainous mammaries. What a way to go.

This violent, uproariously crazed excuse for Chesty to unsnap her bra and maul those monsters (FLASH-CLICK!) is like Deadly Weapons ratcheted to new heights of inanity (if such a thing could be possible). Who better to carry out a top-secret mission than the most conspicuous person in the world? And if her physical appearance weren't eliciting enough looks, the peroxide-wigged Miss Morgan's wardrobe is even frillier and sillier than before--the prime offender being a white-on-red polka-dotted number straight from Clarabelle's closet. Chesty's dubbed voice has a slightly harder edge this time around, but her acting has, thankfully, not improved. Her face is expressionless for ninety percent of the running time; occasionally she smiles, as if being ordered to at gunpoint, and Band-Aid removal brings a grimace of vague bewilderment that must be seen to be disbelieved. Though the dialogue is mostly in sync, Doris Wishman still indulges in her trademark cut-aways and obsessive close-ups of feet (giving us great views of the star's endless arsenal of platforms and spike heels). Then, in an unexpected "poetic" shot, backlit Chesty holds her ruffled robe aloft and whirls for no discernible reason. And of course, the car chase, where Chesty and her pursuer drive the legal limit as the film is sped up.

A third Chesty epic was planned but never made, since Wishman found the star unbearably difficult to work with. Even more unfortunate is the fact that, after working with Fellini, the Polish sight gag--I mean, STAR--never made another film, and has since completely disappeared (how could she hide?). Some say that Chesty (Lillian) is now living in Florida, but...who knows? O Chesty, where art thou?

Super spy Jane, sporting a 73 inch bust, a blonde wig, and some of the most outrageous outfits(outfits that would make Cher cringe), is hot on the trail of exposing a drug ring and capturing its drug czar. To do this, she must go undercover as a regular gal out for guys to buy her drinks and the like. That's right...she is suppose to be a normal girl just out at the club, zoo, or any old place. Not quite. She sticks out like a sore thumb!...well, okay, two sore thumbs! This film carries on the tradition of sleazy exploitation captured so nicely in Doris Wishman's and Chesty Morgan's first collaboration, Deadly Weapons. Actually, this film is a lot better. It has a bigger budget, some better acting(not much better), and a better story. Chesty still can't act. Her acting range goes from quietly disinterested to disinterested. She has no facial expression at all except for one scene where she pulls tape off of one of her breasts. Maybe Wishman wanted realism and used a real adhesive. This time around Chesty has to remove her blouse and bra to take secret pictures with the camera that has been implanted in one of her breasts. She takes many pictures. Big surprise. The big difference in this film, however, is that Wishman has some fairly brutal killings and shows a good bit of gore. She pays an obvious homage to Alfred Hitchcock and the Psycho shower scene. Also, for my money, the second best thing after Morgan(alright, the third best thing) is the music used in the film. What a great soundtrack...it was lively and funny. It was an action-type score played over and over that really made the action on the screen seem all the more farcial. Kudos to Ms. Wishman, Ms. Morgan, and company. Thanks for the mammaries...I mean memories!

Double Agent 73 is the second film exploitation auteur Doris Wishman made with Chesty Morgan, she of the 73-inch bust. The first being Deadly Weapons (1974). The fact that both movies were released in the same year is an early indication that Wishman didn't necessarily waste a lot of time making them and knocked both out very quickly. Consequently, both these films never remotely betray their low budget origins and are truthfully very amateurish throughout, with the camera-work in particular being of an especially terrible standard. Random objects being focused on is the order of the day here. So there's not a massive amount between both films I suppose but I would definitely opt for Deadly Weapons as being the better of the two, I think it has a better overall focus plus the idea of huge breasts being used as deadly weaponry was a more inspired idea than having them being receptacles for a hidden camera.

I guess you would have to describe this as a sexploitation spy film. It's about a secret agent played by Chesty who hunts down a gang of heroin traffickers. A secret camera is installed in one of her mammoth breasts in order to allow her to gather espionage evidence, unfortunately, if she does not complete her mission within a week the camera will self-destruct, killing her in the process. This story-line is more or less a framework to allow for a lot of scenes of Chesty exposing her huge hooters. Not really a bad idea in principle but it is oddly unerotic to be perfectly honest, which means that events in the story-line become more important. But it's all pretty limited stuff on that front, with the odd unexpected moment such as a bloody murder in a shower appearing out of nowhere to enliven events. But on the whole, this one is only interesting to an extent but certainly of curiosity value at least.

So hard to rate. I want to give it a low score for being one of the worst films I've seen in ages. But I want to give it a high score for being absolutely hilarious. I guess it all depends on how you take the genre. If you're a fan of grindhouse and low-budget exploitation flicks, look no further. If you don't get why people find bad movies good, maybe this isn't for you.

While I think Chesty's unfeasibly large breasts were somehow supposed to be titillating (excuse the pun), they're actually rather unfortunate. As the plot revolves entirely around her hauling them out at every opportunity, it's a bit like watching a car wreck. You want to look away, but can't. Her 'acting' is self conscious verging on just plain scared.

The cameraperson hoses their rig around zooming and panning with total disregard for their shadow. If they'd been able to afford a mic boom instead of badly overdubbing, I'm sure the camera would've caught that too.

The cutaways are absolutely classic. Found footage is spliced in with total disregard for what's around it. My favourite scene involves a car blowing up. If you look really closely, you might just notice it's not the car they were driving. Especially as it's a different colour. And make. And it's not in the same place…

In short, Double Agent 73 is pure genius. You couldn't make a movie this bad if you tried. And that's exactly what makes it so good.

Double Agent 73 (1974)

* (out of 4)

I guess the only thing you really need to know about star Chesty Morgan is that her measurements are 73FF-32-36. If you must know about the plot to this sexploitation pic then Chesty plays an undercover agent who is trying to clean out some mean heroin dealers. The plot twist here is that Chesty has a camera inserted into her boob so that she can squeeze them and take a picture of the people she's killing. Why that plot twist? So she can walk around topless of course. If you're looking for any type of quality then you've obviously never seen a film from exploitation master Wishman as anything good really isn't her cup of tea. There's no question that this is a horrid movie but it's somewhat like a car wreck because no matter how brutal or ugly it gets you still can't turn your head away. As for Chesty I guess it goes without saying that she's a horrible actress. For the life of me it seems like she's incredibly unhappy or confused about being in this movie as she looks as if she's in pain or perhaps drugged. Either way, her performance is pretty bad as are her dubbed lines (apparently her Polish accent was too rough). We're not here to see her act though as everyone is coming to see her 73FF friends and I must admit that they did nothing for me. I can't say I found them erotic, sexy or interesting. I just saw them as freaks in a freak show. The film appears to have been shot silent with all the voices added in post-production, which is something Wishman did quite often in her films. The low-budget nature of the film actually helps it as everything from the music score to the editing to the direction is pretty bad. This is pure exploitation so I'm sure people will enjoy sitting around with their friends and making fun of everything that's going on.